Spain! (In a nutshell)

Let me back up a bit. So my spring semester of sophomore years was going just dandy. I really liked all my classes, I had just bought a new magic bullet and was killing the smoothie game, and I finally got my roommate obsessed with country music. Even better I had plans to go to Spain with three friends for Spring Break. The week leading up to the trip was full of corona chatter as people in New York and California started testing positive. Tessa backed out of the trip which obviously made us sad at the time but looking back was such a valid, rational decision. But I was hell bent on going. Nothing would stop me. “It’s fine” I told myself “worst case scenario we get quarantined for two weeks when we get home” and my parents were on board too. Oh boy did my worst case become the best case scenario. But I’ll get there. So the three of us: me, Megan, and Charlotte got on a plane to Madrid. We had an amazing time in Madrid with Rick Steves leading us through the city. And nobody was worried about Corona or even talking about. Hell, people were still making out on the street. If I’ve learned anything through this experience it’s that Europeans are terrible at social distancing. We even participated in a women’s march. They were yelling chants in Spanish so as far as I knew they could have been saying “we want corona we want corona.” Which is basically what it meant to be walking through the streets of Madrid with thousands of other people chanting so loud that your spit lands on everyone around you. Oh boy did Spain regret that march. If you want to hear/see more of our Spain adventure stay tuned for our ridiculous vlog that I will be putting many hours into because I have nothing better to do in this time of self quarantining. Well actually Megan made a list of things to do in quarantine that are way better uses of time than making a vlog. They include learning Esperanto, learning how to harmonize, learning how to beat box, and learning American Sign language. But oh well. I will be spending two weeks on iMovie. So our last day in Madrid our friend who we were visiting told us that her school was shutting down for two weeks. And that’s when things got real bad real fast. Our god send parents back home bought us back up flights for a few days earlier than expected “just in case.” But Megan and I were set on staying the full two weeks. Charlotte (the second most rational one in the group) was content to go home early. Then we got on a train for Granada, a city in the only province in Spain without any recorded cases of Corona. A nice woman we met in the Zara Home store told us that Granada has a history of avoiding pandemics having avoided the plague. Legend has it that it’s because of all the beer they drink and weed they smoke. I don’t know if I buy it but you do you Granada. By then rumors were flying about Wesleyan getting shut down. Other liberal arts schools on the East Coast were doing so and many of my friends were convinced that Wesleyan would follow suit. Again, Megan Charlotte and I were sure that this would not happen. Worst case scenario, we said, we’ll stay at school but take classes on line for two weeks. They only need to protect the professors right? WRONG. We continued our Spain adventures and went for a walk to a beautiful view point with the wackiest rag tag group of hostel dwellers. As I watched the sun set over the Spanish mountains with two of my best friends in the world (and some other hostel randos) I was overwhelmed with joy and gratitude and awe at this incredible life I get to live. And then everything went to shit. When we got back to the hostel for 10 euro paella night we received the email from President Michael Roth that Wesleyan would be shutting down and that we had one weeks to move out. We tried to make it through paella night without crying in front of the hostel randos but that proved impossible so we said adios and went to sleep, after many calls to our parents of course. A fun part of this was that as all this was going on my incredible mother was at a nice spa in Arizona with some of her girlfriends. So every time I called with news like “corona is bad in Madrid” or “my school is shutting down” or “there’s a travel ban on everyone coming back from Europe” she would respond with a “off to cardio drumming” or “I have to go to my chocolate class. “ In one particular instance I was calling to tell her something important, I can’t  remember what it was right now but she convinced me she had to tell me her story first. “So I was going to my yoga class. And then I walked in and it was a Pilates class. So then I was like I don’t want to do Pilates that’s my worst nightmare so then I found someone else to do yoga with me and I had a two person yoga class!” Yes אמא that is the most important news of the day. But then again I don’t remember what I was calling to tell her but I do remember this little story so maybe the Pilates yoga mix up was truly the most important news for me to hear that day. But in all seriousness I am overwhelmingly grateful for my parents and how they have stayed so calm through this whole thing. What I most needed during all this was my mom’s humor and zen mode to rub off on me. And that it did. While some parents were freaking out mine were laying by the pool telling me to stay in Spain until the day I wouldn’t be let back into the United States. And boy did that day come sooner than expected. We woke up the morning after the paella night school closure nightmare to the news that trump had instituted a travel ban from Europe and we had to get home before Friday. It was Wednesday. Once again thank god for our parents back home. Charlotte’s dad got us on a flight home on Friday, train tickets to the airport, and an airport hotel to stay in the night before our flight. And all before we could even wake up. We would probably still be in Spain if it weren’t for Jeffrey Babbin. Luckily our tickets for the Alhambra were that morning so we got to enjoy one last day in Granada in one of the most beautiful places in the world. In an exciting turn of events when we got to our hotel room by the airport the power went out in our room only at one in the morning. Our collective Spanish could only tell the repair man “we cannot turn the lights on.” I bet he was thinking to himself, “are they really that dumb, you just press the light switch”. We got to the airport with an insane amount of time to spare. It was probably 90% full of college students who had been studying abroad in Madrid and needed to get home. Everyone must’ve thought that was the case for me Megan and Charlotte but we weren’t going to tell them we were frauds who had only been there for five days. Charlotte’s dad was only able to book us on three separate flights. And I was the lucky (or unlucky) one who got the flight with only one business class seat. Oh boy did I fill my bag with $5000 worth of snacks from the business lounge. And hopefully insurance will pay for that flight so basically it’s like I made money off this whole thing. Finally back in the US we trained it from New York to Connecticut which was definitely a bad idea but after flying in business class I could not fathom paying god knows how much for an Uber back to Wesleyan. I feel bad for the woman next to us who just wanted to commute home and had no idea she was sitting next to two teenagers who had just returned from a level 3 country. But alas we made it back. And I fell asleep at 8pm. Deepest night of sleep of my life. I spent the whole next day packing my dorm and probably got halfway through by the end of the day. My roommate, on the other hand, arrived at 1:30 and was packed up and ready to drive away by 4:00. I’m telling myself it’s because I had to put things in a storage unit but let’s be honest I have a lot more shit than she does and my shit is a lot less organized than hers. In any case after many trips to the storage unit with the trunk slightly ajar Megan and I  were all moved out. During all of this Charlotte returned home and remains self quarantined with her family. This corona virus thing is bringing staycation to a whole new level.